2 June 2025
Animals embrace and release but when plants wrap around each other the result is often permanent. Sometimes an embrace is intentional, sometimes not.
Intentional
- Almost like a snake, the woody vine pictured at top intentionally wrapped itself around a tree branch. But then it stopped growing and left the two locked in a vegetative embrace.
- Dodder (Cuscata), pictured below, is a parasitic native annual in the morning glory (Convolvulaceae) family that intentionally wraps itself closely around a plant stem. It then inserts very tiny feelers between the cells and sucks nutrients from its host. As an annual, it starts growing from seed but loses its soil-based roots when it has found a really good host.
- Porcelain berry (Ampelopsis glandulosa) and grapevine intentionally drape themselves on trees and shrubs to lift themselves above the canopy. When this vine fell it embraced the oak.
- Some plants have leaves that clasp the stem, circled in pink below. Botanists: Can you tell me the name of this plant? I forgot to note it when I took the photo at Raccoon Wildflower Reserve.
Unplanned, Inadvertent
There are also inadvertent vegetative embraces, some of which are temporary.
- Two trunks of the same species grew so close together that they fused at the base in this permanent embrace.
- When this skunk cabbage put up shoots in the spring, one of them speared a dead leaf whose ribs now prevent the skunk cabbage from opening. Temporary embrace? I like to rescue these plants, especially mayapple and trillium, by pulling off the dead leaf. I can’t remember if I rescued this one.
